


How Much You Still Have to Lose

by Locksnek



Series: UngNa dumpster fires [5]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Loyalty, Other, Strong Language, can’t decide if this is too OOC but this idea blindsided me and I had to, discussed trauma and mutilation, excessive pathos, how tf did this become my otp, it’s fine this is fine, mature themes, peeper beetle aftermath, so whatever I’m rolling with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27882673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locksnek/pseuds/Locksnek
Summary: SkekNa has a disconcerting and illuminating conversation with SkekUng, post-peeper-beetle.
Relationships: skekNa/skekUng (Dark Crystal)
Series: UngNa dumpster fires [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823725
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	How Much You Still Have to Lose

**Author's Note:**

> Permit me to flood the AOR tag with this ship. I think I wanted to write something contrasting after I disgorged that thing about their first encounter.

The door to SkekNa’s bedchamber opened, letting in a lance of light from the main room of his quarters. He’d given SkekUng his keys, to come and go freely while SkekNa himself lurked in convalescence, but he still started as if it might be someone else come to bother him. The bright light hurt his eyes, er, his eye. SkekNa let out his breath in relief as SkekUng shuffled in and closed the door again, leaving the single low-burning candle on a shelf in the corner as the sole illumination.   
  
  
The mattress shifted as SkekUng sat and scooted up to him, hunkering over him. SkekNa tried not to give in to self-pity as SkekUng’s whiskery face brushed lightly against his own on the side with the still-intact eye. He was lucky not to be alone, and he had told himself he would let this suffering make him stronger, as the loss of his arm had. The eye was possibly worse though. He’d borne the sentencing and punishment itself with much more fortitude, but it had deprived him of the keen vision that had always aided him invaluably in his work. That would be even harder to adjust to than a hook for a hand. SkekNa permitted himself to sigh pitifully as SkekUng nosed his beak, but the latter evidently wasn’t there just to check in on him.

  
“Hey. Fucking berserker idiot. You can’t spin out of control of like that again. Ever. You’re running out of parts to lose just one of.”

  
SkekNa looked up and couldn’t help whimpering again at his very great misfortune. The shock of losing his depth perception was going to take a while to get past. Everything had become like a particularly unskilled painting, dull, flat, and the worst of it was seeing SkekUng on that depthless plane. Not that SkekUng was much to look at by most standards, very physically imposing but equally unlovely, but, SkekNa liked looking at him all the same.   
  
  
“I’m not just passing the time with idle chatter,” SkekUng said sternly, unimpressed with the pathos. “Listen, for once in your damn life. Emperor told me all the wonderful ideas he’s got for what he might do to you if you fuck up again. You want to be blind, or handless? Or how about losing something new, a leg maybe? Your tongue? Your tail? Get half your face burned off?”

  
SkekNa faltered. There was only so much that could reasonably be cut off a Skeksis before they could no longer perform their function optimally, and order and efficiency were very important to SkekSo. Everyone needed to be able to earn their keep, and not even the Emperor’s own contempt could move him to violate that directive with excessive mutilation. They couldn’t possibly blind him completely or take his other hand. It would be impractical. But he could probably get used to functioning without a leg, or his tail for that matter although that was somehow the most offensive suggestion. Who would want to though? Eventually the altered quality of existence might be too much to bear.

  
“All right, all right,” SkekNa muttered.

  
“No, not ‘all right.’ I’ll spare you the other ideas he had. You need to be able to promise us both that you won’t overstep again.” SkekUng had gripped him under the chin and was staring at him with alarming intensity.

  
“Can this wait? I can’t make big promises now, I’m tired and my eye hurts.”  
  
  
“What eye?”

  
SkekNa flinched as though struck and growled weakly, trying to pull away.   
  
  
“Your eye is fucking gone, SkekNa. What hurts is what’s not there anymore. You need to take this seriously,” SkekUng continued unsympathetically. “Do you not understand how much you still have to lose?”

  
Nothing SkekUng was saying was wrong, but his timing was even more tactless than usual. Could he not see how tired SkekNa was–how incapable he presently was of getting himself into trouble even if he’d wanted to? Even while part of him regretted his temper, SkekNa allowed it to flare up and snapped, “Why’s it matter to you? Worried that if they hack enough off me I’ll be too ugly to fuck?”

  
SkekUng hauled off and backhanded him across the face, hard, which set his whole head on fire. SkekNa felt as though all the bones around his recently-vacated eye socket were about to crack and crumble, and garish fountains of color exploded in the darkened half of his field of vision. He snarled and wailed, simultaneously irate and devastated. SkekUng could be cruel, was rarely above inflicting pain, but SkekNa hadn’t been expecting such treatment when he was as weak as an arduff whelp. He cradled his head in his hand, gasping at the pain and the sense of betrayal. The betrayal slowly ebbed away. He’d deserved that, hadn’t he? He’d insulted SkekUng, who was probably just trying to help. Not that they didn’t insult each other all the time, but this was a bit different.

  
SkekNa raised his head slowly. The room was still spinning. SkekUng was standing by the door. His jaw was set, his hands clenched, and he was glaring at nothing and breathing hard.

  
Wincing, SkekNa dragged himself off the bed and across the floor. He couldn’t stand up, which was just as well. He hunkered down by SkekUng’s feet, leaning his head against his leg.

  
SkekUng twitched as if considering the merits of kicking him in the skull, then exhaled loudly and slowly. “You really think that’s all that matters to me?”

  
“No! No. Don’t listen to me, SkekUng. I’m fucking stupid. They just maimed me and humiliated me, and I’m grouchy. Forgive.”  
  
  
“I shouldn’t. You never learn. You always pull some idiotic shit. I should leave you alone with your mess for once.”

  
“Please.”

  
“Why the fuck would you even ask me that? You think that’s all that matters to me, why? Maybe it’s all that matters to you?”

  
“No!” SkekNa protested, nosing and licking a bit warily at one of the still-clenched hands. His frame was shaking in a way he couldn’t remember experiencing before in all his days. Could he be crying at this late hour of his life? “I don’t think that of you. Of–us. I spoke out of turn. Don’t go. You can hit me again, if that helps.”

  
“Aah, ‘shard’s sake. What’d I ever do to deserve this?” SkekUng grasped him beneath the chin again, sitting down on the floor next to him in the same motion. “Listen, I don’t want to see anything more happen to you. And that’s got only a bit to do with fucking. Thra knows you’ll be prettier than me even if they cave your whole face in. And it’s not the point. How long has it been, since Stonewood, since you said–?”

  
“Seven hundred trine. Give or take.”

  
“Yeah. I didn’t forget. I assume you didn’t.”

  
“No…”   
  
“Good. Might interest you to know, next time you do a major transgression, they’ll punish me for it.”

  
SkekNa’s gut lurched. “They’ll– what?” 

  
“Let’s review the facts for a second here. You keep getting in trouble, and you’ve incurred severe punishments more than once. If that keeps happening, there won’t be enough left of you to do your job. Meanwhile, when’ve I ever got in trouble?” Fair enough. SkekUng had an infamous temper and an excessive streak of sadism, but he also had a certain sense of self-possession that somehow kept him from exercising those qualities when doing so would be particularly inconvenient for him. “SkekSo’s well aware that what happens to one of us will affect the other. Someone would have to be living with their head in a gobble pit not to notice that. Maybe we should’ve been secretive from the start, but that ship’s sailed, and neither of us ever had the damned restraint anyway. So, here we are. If you fuck up again, they’ll draw lots to decide which one of us to punish for it.”

  
“What? _What?_ That’s not–” SkekNa stammered and gaped, put to shame by the matter-of-fact way SkekUng delivered this information. “He can’t do that, it’s not his place to force you to answer for me, that’s nobody’s place. Fucking walking pile of dung, I’ll–”

  
SkekUng clapped a hand around his beak. “No! Damn, SkekNa, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Shut up and let’s not call the Emperor a walking pile of dung, huh?”

  
“You’re telling me to shut up when what I say is true, you–”

  
“You sound like SkekLi. Remember what they did to him when he wouldn’t close his damn mouth? If I recall, _you_ advised him to keep a lid on it.” SkekUng poked SkekNa accusingly in the chest.

  
“That was a long time ago. He’s fine now.”

  
“Sure, but do you want that to happen to either of us?”

  
“That’s just it.” SkekNa put his hands on SkekUng’s shoulders and shook him feebly, that act alone nearly making him faint. SkekUng steadied him, looking at him with an almost sad glower (was he capable of being sad, with all his bluster and calculation and vigor, with his headlong enthusiasm for life? Shouldn’t SkekNa know this about him by now?). “I shouldn’t be your responsibility. You should fucking disavow me, if this is what it’s come to. Nobody–nobody, not the Emperor himself–can tell you to answer for me!”

  
“The Emperor didn’t tell me anything. _I_ told him, SkekNa. _I_ told _him_ I answer for you.”

  
SkekNa sobbed, in outrage or shame. “Why the fuck would you do that? Why–?”

  
“What else was going to get you to take this seriously?”


End file.
